Phil Demise Smith

Noing It All
 
As I try to express myself, words fail. As words fail I go to pictures. As pictures arrive, words come to mind. As the mind goes, so goes the reason to express anything. As anything happens, everything takes on new meaning. As new meaning settles, definition takes shape. As definition takes shape, the lines of communication are drawn. As communication draws to a close, it overlaps and becomes the means to an end. As the ends approach, a new mean begins. As the new mean begins, it means new beginnings lie between the extremes. As the extremes lie, they close in on the truth. As the truth opens, I try to express myself. 

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The Water's Edge
 
inside the depths of flamboyancy and the original floatation lies the muscle of the resistance to the water's lure. The sun's mirror remembers to reflect inside the earth's deepest concerns where the beginnings of life still lie in an affluent suspension of disbelief, still move their crestfallen dream to the moon's rhythmic lunacy and still push against its future flesh with a sorcerer's dripping pulse. It is into this landscape of foaming mountains that time comes crashing up against the moist dream of a swimmer's thirst and then crawls back onto the beach with its wet, seductive fingers, drawing our evolution into its magic. We follow in our own footsteps, back through the liquid windows and into the crisp origin of lungs. Our body remembers the substance of what matters and in our joy, we return to the moment before.  
 
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The Principles of Obstruction

the principles of obstruction begin at 9 am. they take turns minding their own business and then get involved in petty agreements. I'm nowhere to be seen. but I'm always present and greatly affected by their constant badgering. they raise their voices and rise to each occasion like a wave. it is virtually impossible. coming or going become moot points. standing still is out of the question. doing something or not doing it, intersect, coincide, overlap, and eventually go back home to sleep. even the differences don't make a difference. all the words in my thoughts are lower case. I remain in the upper regions with nothing more than a backpack and a cup of snow. yet the life goes on and on. never touching itself. like a wind that never meets its match. moving in the inner circles with a carefree whistle following close behind. going nowhere with determination. 
 
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Prose and Con Sequences
 
A prose poem writes itself and presents sunflowers growing on the surface of the sun. It breaks glass that is already an abstract reflection of the concrete and a particle of sand on the beach. The prose and con sequences talk in highfalutin whispers and screams for attention. Nonsensical is all the rage. It accomplishes being more than what is said.
 
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Memory's Forgotten Future
 
The aggressive innocence of his childhood along with the interference of broken words spoken through the sliver of silver painted on the window, blocks the sunlight from streaming onto the river of sleepy consciousness. It is imbedded in memory’s forgotten future. He is trying hard to be a wise old man but the years are stacked against him, leaning on his swollen mirror creating a wide angle that enraptures too many done deals. The choices, themselves, are winging it. Certain flight patterns don’t exist anymore but are still offered as the echoes of the most enticing choices. The wind changes its mind and becomes a falling leaf. His whole body is so tired of not talking that it’s beginning to shut up and disappear in a pile of color. When the Time comes it makes believe there is more to come. So he comes to believe in an immortal continuum that cradles mortality in its embrace as it is dying to know if this is the end.
 
He misconstrues the last straw as another pathway to breathing.  He views the sunrise as a major umbilical chord that ushers in the fanfare of the afterbirth of waking up. He, alone, hears the empty sound of the yawning new beginning that is prone to rely on its back and forth. He moves through this next moment like a blind visionary hoping to bump into truth, stop for a split second, and then stumble into eternity. 
 
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A Hymn for You Not Me
 
He is the unknown in the equation that is unequaled. He is ashamed and delighted. Once lit, now as dark as mourning in winter skipping through a dream keeping in time with a long moment that is shattered. The broken notes that this microscopic organist plays is a silent music of noise that ripples in a small pond of insects. It’s a popular spiritual dogma that clogs the air with a certainty that is certain to fail and is unsure of what success sounds like. He is quite okay with thisis, even though it is an is that is not today or tomorrow, it is an is that still is a promise that the sun makes by poking its light into the dark corners of yesterday where it shows its true colours as a never-ending spectrum of beginnings. This is the hymn of this unsung hero, a bird humming without wings or twigs. It is a prayer offered to a nest of possible feeding positions each chirping for sustenance. Keep in mind, that this hymn is not addressed to me and that’s all that really counts in this numb realm of mathematic subtractions that includes you and all your variables…………….
 
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Phil Demise Smith: Poet, musician, artist, and teacher. Editor /publisher of Gegenschein Press (1971-1987). Owner/producer of  NYC performance loft- The Gegenschein Vaudeville Placenter from 1976-1978.  Published in numerous small press magazines. Chapbook What I Don’t Know For Sure (Burning Deck) and Periods,selected writings 1972-1987 (Gegenschein). Poetry readings in the U.S. and Europe. Has written/ performed his own songs with AnDna. Recent vinyl album Growing in the Dark. Numerous one person and group art shows in the U.S. / Europe including The Musée Création Franche in Bégles, France. Paintings are in many private collections.